Along with the monthly consumer prices report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates “real” wages, wages adjusted for inflation. Why this doesn’t get as much attention as other data points is beyond us; if you’d been paying attention to wage growth over the past, well, couple decades, you’d have been ready for all the bad things that were piling up around that dark bend in the road, the one that nobody could see coming.

Real average hourly wages were up 0.6% in January 2013 from January 2012, the BLS reported this morning. Average weekly wages were up 0.3%.

Any time we see wage growth outpacing even the smoothed, massaged measures of inflation represented by the CPI, we’re happy. Rising wages speak to a growing, healthy economy, and that ultimately is the best thing for equities. But wage growth is a fragile flower, and we fear that any headwind, and there are several massing, may be enough to scatter it to the four winds.